T S Eliot Preludes Poem Analysis Essay Example

understand why Eliot writes the way he writes!

The original title of the poem (as per the manuscript) was “Preludes in Roxbury” Roxbury was a dirty and badly cared for suburb of Boston, so close to Harvard. The sordid life in the surroundings influenced him and he is making efforts to present the life there, as it is. His poems have the aura of urban imagery. In this stanza particularly, the poet makes the uninspired comments of the dull and routine days that make his life, the strewn newspapers are indicative of the mess of life, and the pair of words like ‘stamps-lamps’, ‘lots-pots’, give vent to the feelings of tired approach to life.

Yet another day of existence must come to close, the poet summarizes in a resigned style. Why he feels so? Here is the answer. “I believe that the disorder Eliot … created in their poetry may be characterized as a type of "revolutionary music" created from the sounds, sights, and smells of their respective urban realities. This theme of disorder, which in Eliot's case was thoroughly Modernist and …. also relates to Eliot's interest in the work of Pablo Picasso, whom he mentions along with Stravinsky, in his "London Letters. Picasso's revolutionary paintings are in some ways quite similar to Eliot's verse with its strange juxtapositions and odd perspectives. ”(Jonathan…) II The sun rises in the morning with fresh glow, forgetting the darkness of yester night.

He remains inspired, but not the sun as visualized by the Poet. He lives in continuation of the previous day, carrying forward the same dullness and hopelessness. The useless and insipid remnants

of yesterday are there to greet him, like “Of faint, stale, smell of beer. The day begins with heaviness of heart, due to uninspiring surroundings. By ‘muddy feet’ the poet refers to the slow and unwilling movements. The routine work has to carry on, howsoever unpleasant it may be. The cup of coffee is the source of short-lived energy. Each day seems to be a burden and the poet feels at heart why these mornings arrive. He dissects his natural surroundings part by part trying to discover inspiration in some corner, but fails. Due to this feeling of dullness, time appears to moves with strongly experienced pressures, slowly and grudgingly.

III In this stanza the poet is specific about his day’s ‘torture. ’ He seems to address a question for himself, why the morning has arrived, to set in motion another dull, routine time-table of life. Even getting up from the bed, is not the straightforward and invigorating exercise for him. To get up or not to get up from the bed is the question. He makes the preparatory exercise to move from the bed by tossing the blanket, but actually lies down only gazing the emptiness (that envelops his heart).

He looks out from window at the dimly lit lamps, and sees the dull images that he has been seeing throughout the day. He reemphasizes the theme of Stanza II, but here he enumerates his personal encounters of the day with his life. He sits huddled in the bed, staring vacantly and thinking pensively as thousand of thoughts engulf him, making him more and more confused. IV The poet experiences emptiness everywhere.

Seeing emptiness is one thing; experiencing emptiness is a profound issue. His attempts to go deep which seems to cut short somehow.

He is definitely hankering after something, and has the luggage of unfulfilled desires and ambitions to carry with him. The conscience of a blackened stress indicates the present level of conscience which he is desperately trying to elevate. He seems to have been frustrated in his ‘life-saving’ efforts and he becomes cynical. He wishes to dismiss his thoughts abruptly, out of sheer helplessness. To avert and divert the feelings of total collapse, and that he does taking recourse to hearty laughter, he changes the direction of his thought processes.

With this laughter, he gives vent to his dark, suppressed feelings. The old women gathering broken pieces of driftwood for fire, has deep meaning—this action, from the secular point of view, is for a limited purpose, for cooking food or to experience warmth, both energy-giving activities. But from the spiritual aspect, even the small and insignificant looking activates have a meaning and are connected to the concept of total activity! Not a blade of grass grows, or the dry leaf moves without the implicit support and consent of that Total Activity. Conclusion:

Eliot knocks at the portals of spirituality but actually fails to enter it. Had he entered, he would have understood the true meaning of the pairs of opposites—happiness and sorrow are the alternative beats of the same heart. He thoroughly understands that there is an inner world, and it is the fountainhead of bliss. The communion with it paves the way for eternal happiness. Happiness and melancholy are the

outcomes of our own positive and negative thoughts respectively. The title “Preludes” anticipates a question and tries to provide answers in depth.

His preludes are atmospheric. He has succeeded in picturing the life of the working class which is totally routine, right from the cradle to the grave and from the womb to the tomb. Eliot’s style of personification is thought provoking-like the evening “settles down”, the morning “comes to consciousness. ” “His souls stretched tight across the skies,” seems to be the vision of T. S. Eliot. Why he writes the way he writes, and this is very much applicable to the poem “Preludes. ’

Here you have the answer. His poems in many respects articulated the disillusionment of a younger post-World-War-I generation with the values and conventions--both literary and social--of The Victorian era. ” (Minstrels... ) Humanity has relegated God and spirituality to the background, perhaps as an after-retirement project. Materialist man armed with bookish knowledge and technological advances, it seems, is bent upon challenging the Nature and the very concept of spirituality. “His soul stretched tight across the skies—that fade behind a city block,” indicate the low priority man has accorded to God and the noble life of spirituality.